Between a Rock and a Hard Place
by Razamataz22
Summary: With Lisanna returning to the guild after two years in Edolas there is much cause for celebration. With new revelations however secrets start to emerge and Natsu finds himself in more trouble than he wants as both Lucy and Lisanna show their affection for the pink haired Dragon Slayer. With the watchful eyes of the guild upon him, what will Natsu do?


**Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail**

**...**

A minor celebration would have been an understatement. For the guild members of Fairy Tail, two years of sadness and grief had been reversed in a single event; the return of a guild member long thought forever gone, Lisanna. A party like such had not been seen in many months and under no circumstance did the party look like it was slowing down in the slightest! Everywhere people were having fun and laughing and after the guild had been attacked by Phantom Lord, this was just what the mages of Fairy Tail needed. Heck, even Juvia and Gajeel seemingly had the time of their lives, despite them having no knowledge of Lisanna before the Edolas incident.

"It's so good to have you back Lisanna," Mirajane proclaimed, tilting her head slightly to the side as a mixed smile extended across her face. Her slim, tender figure stood out in the massive crowd of people, and her eyes, as sweet and innocent as they may have looked, were filled with several years of sadness finally being washed away. Tears poured across her cheeks and down to her jawline as she embraced her long lost sister. Standing by their side was Elfman, whose eyes had widened slightly as he noticed something strange about his newly returned sister for the first time since she had made her entrance.

"Elf-niichan, is something wrong?" asked Lisanna as she saw her older brother's jaw drop as he continued to stare at her. Instead of responding in words, he raised a shaking hand and pointed at Lisanna's left hand where a gold ring encircled her finger. The small object looked so graceful yet simple, it's golden surface snaked its way around her petite finger in a series of intricate designs and in the centre of the simple band was a single large ruby-red gem.

"Where'd you get that Lisanna?" asked Mirajane. "It's so beautiful!"

"This?" said Lisanna as she raised her hand with a pondering look in her eyes, "Oh, Natsu gave it to me when he proposed a while back."

All across the guild silence fell as Lisanna's words carried to every corner of the hall, many people dropping their jaws at the news. Almost instantly all eyes turned towards Natsu who was wondering how many quests it would take to afford such an expensive looking ring, never did the thought of him having proposed to Lisanna enter his mind, though that would quickly change.

"He lllllllllllllliikes you!" The outbreak from Happy was simple yet fitting and allowed the tension in the room to decrease.

"You've got it all wrong," giggled Lisanna as she drew the attention back to her. "This was the Edolas Natsu. Back in Edolas, we were always on the run from the Kingdom, and Natsu knowing that one day we may not make it, proposed hoping that he could bring some happiness back into the guild. At first, I was a bit hesitant but he really made me feel like the only girl in the world, it's a moment I will never forget."

A blush quickly spread across her face as that last sentence left her lips. And with Lisanna's story coming to a close a faint murmur around the guild was heard as people whispered things to one another, common phrases included, "That's so cute," and "I wish our Natsu was like that." Meanwhile Natsu stood there, realizing how hard it would have been for his Edolas counterpart to face his fear head on and step outside of his vehicle for what he believed he had to do. Natsu knew that his other self had great trouble socializing and to propose to a girl as beautiful as Lisanna almost seemed impossible, yet he had done it, and obviously she had said yes.

"Flame brain, seems your Edo-self has more guts than you, proposing to Lisanna and all. Wasn't it you who was raised by a dragon?" teased Gray hoping to get a more or less violent response out of the young dragon slayer. His eye twitched slightly however as Natsu refused to move, he was still lost deep in thought. It took a minute before Natsu raised his head to find that nearly every member of the guild was looking at him, to see Natsu stationary for such a time was a rare sight indeed, especially considering the serious facial expression that he seemingly had taken a liking to.

"What was that?" asked Natsu causing a lot of the guild members to literally facepalm, to his great confusion.

"I said that your other self's got more guts than you because he proposed," yelled Gray while trying to the best of his abilities to compose himself.

"Oh yeah!" shouted Natsu, his usual self starting to resurface. "If that's what you want then I'll just..." Natsu caught himself before he finished the sentence. He knew what he wanted to say, the word was on the tip of his tongue. After having spent years with Lisanna and Happy as a family when they were kids for this to occur would seem like second nature. Yet no matter how much he willed it, he couldn't say the next word and he couldn't help but be frustrated. His hand clenched unconsciously as his mind once again started processing information. While he was happy that Lisanna was back, he knew that he hadn't seen her in two years and while he wanted everything to go back to the way they were, after everything she had been through he wondered if anything would ever be the same again. A lot of things could happen in two years.

"Natsu!" said Lucy, snapping the fire eating mage out of his focus.

"You wanna' fight me Lucy!," called Natsu, trying to relocate the point of interest, though at the same time asking out of pure distraction.

"NO!" she responded, quickly hiding behind Happy who had strategically placed himself in the middle of the conflict. Other than the placement of his tiny corpus, the small exceed had kept quiet while this whole dilemma had evolved, slowly analysing people's reactions as well as analysing the chance of fish appearing from the sky, but that was a whole different topic though.

"I think she wants to fight you Natsu." He started making his signature encouraging look towards the dragon slayer.

"Don't change the topic Natsu, what did you want to do? Tell us!" continued Gray, his fists clenched as he prepared himself for the coming battle that surely would occur after such banter.

Ignoring the random outbreaks coming from Happy as well as the constant attempts to get into a fight coming from Gray, Natsu quickly swallowed as beads of sweat formed on his forehead. Looking around, he searched for any chance of a scapegoat to occur but nothing looked remotely distracting enough for him to get out of this situation. "N-Nothing," he said even though his voice didn't convey any form of confidence. Looking around he could see predatory eyes scanning him, wanting to know the newly developed secret.

"I...I don't feel so good, I'm going home," interrupted Natsu as he began to walk towards the entrance of the guild. The sun was about to set, yet everyone in Fairy Tail knew that it was just a sign of the impending parties that always followed the appearance of the night and it was therefore a rare sight to see the always-partying Natsu leave that early.

"I-If you're not feeling well I can try and fix it," offered the fellow dragon slayer in Wendy who didn't realize that Natsu was merely trying to get away, and instead almost instinctively started to activate her healing magic.

"It's fine Wendy, I just need a lie down," said Natsu brushing her off. His footsteps echoed through the hall as he stepped down a small flight of stairs to where the Strauss family was standing.

"Natsu," whispered Lisanna but her voice didn't carry and Natsu walked by, too ashamed to make eye contact with the white haired girl. As he stepped out of the guild, the members started talking to one another in rapid succession but Lisanna didn't hear any of it, her sole focus was on the back of the pink haired dragon slayer who still had a home in her heart.

**...**

"Oi! Natsu!" called the blue exceed as he intensively dashed through the air, passing buildings and humans without a second thought. He had been slightly worried when he had seen Natsu storm out of the guild like that, and the fact that he didn't take Lucy or anyone else with him was even more mind boggling. "You went home so I wouldn't see the surprise beforehand, right?" Continued Happy, imagining endless streams of the most exotic fish just waiting to be devoured, heck he was even considering sharing some of them with Carla.

"Not quite, sport" The dragon slayer still seemed somewhat down but at least his voice had regained some of its spark and joyfulness when seeing the wacky actions of his best and most trusted friend. "I was actually heading to Lucy's place for the night," Natsu's smile quickly widened when the thought of Lucy's apartment and the warm feeling it gave came to his mind.

"Come on! Happy!" Called Natsu, boosting the power of his jump with his incredible dragon slayer magic, causing the jump to the window entrance to be a mere game.

The apartment was huge, yet you could still feel the warmth of the place, even on the coldest of nights. The fireplace that Natsu would so often just stare into was unlit and the whole place bared clear signs of an owner who had been absent for quite a while. "That's Lucy, huh Happy?" teased Natsu, breathing new fire into the fireplace which caused the whole place to be bathed in the most beautiful orange light.

"Aye sir!"

"So what do you wa-" started Natsu though he was interrupted by the light steps of feet coming up the stairs that led to the apartment. The thought of another one of Lucy's lectures weighed heavily on his mind, and the fear of the ever so hurtful slap that followed was literally frightening, even Happy was fleetingly picking up the fish which he had randomly thrown all over the apartment for some reason. "Waaah! Trout or salmon!" Shouted the small exceed while having an internal struggle with himself about what kind Carla would most likely share with him and in that case which one he would be able save before the arrival of Lucy's judgment.

The handle of the door slowly turned, giving Natsu and Happy the expression that Lucy was on purpose prolonging the punishment by doing so extra carefully. Yet finally as the small wooden door opened, the tiny blonde entered, looking more or less affected by the devious works of alcohol. "Guys!" called Lucy as her gaze fell towards the duo who were already screaming in agony. "What's *hick* going on?" The usual grace that the blonde carried, and the tone of which her words used to be spoken was completely gone, instead a picture of a certain Cana came to mind. "Oi! Why did you bail on Lisanna, Natsu?" She continued, not thinking before speaking.

"I-I wasn't bailing! I'm just waiting for the right moment!" answered Natsu in his iconic light voice.

"You liii *hick* iiike her!" tried the blonde, to Happy's great displeasure feeling like his character trait was being stolen. Her body was moving in a rather exotic way, her bust continually jumping up and down which didn't quite help with Natsu's already existing problem with staying in focus. The problem was not Lucy's boobs but rather the way she repeatedly grabbed and twisted them as she made Lisanna-related references.

Just how much had she had to drink?

It was clear for Natsu that it would be almost impossible for him to describe the sea of emotions that had washed over him when Lisanna's engagement had been mentioned, especially when Lucy was in this condition. He had wanted to tell her about his own confusion and how he was unsure of their relationship ever returning to the way it was, but maybe it was better keeping it as a secret, for the sake of both himself and Lisanna.

"I think you should lie down too Lucy." laughed Natsu as he took her up with both his arms and carried her slowly to the couch, since he was planning on taking the bed for himself of course.

"You just want to avoid talking about little Lisanna" she sighed, seeming rather disappointed at how boring her male friend was, especially when his crush had returned. Though as Natsu lowered her body upon the surface of her bed he found that Lucy had wrapped her arms around his neck and was holding him close to her, her breasts pressing against his chest. While Natsu was seen as dense by most people especially in this area of interest, this was something that made his cheeks go red.

"Please don't leave me," whispered Lucy which caused Natsu's eyes to go wide but before he had a chance to ask what the celestial wizard meant by those words she had fallen asleep.

Prying Lucy's arms away from his neck, Natsu turned intent on making his way out of the house when he found his path blocked by Happy. "Natsu, what did she just say, I didn't hear it properly?" asked Happy, curious as always.

"Nothing important," said Natsu as he knelt down and gave Happy a scratch behind the ear, something which made the exceed smile. "Come on, let's head back home for the night."

"We're not going to stay here?" asked Happy in response, slightly confused as to why they'd leave the comfort of Lucy's house.

"Not tonight," replied Natsu as he stood at his highest before making his way towards the window, pushing it open and allowing him to climb out, the flying form of Happy quickly following him. Closing the glass panel, Natsu took one final look inside to see that Lucy had rolled to her side and was grumbling in her sleep, her fingers gripping at her sheets as if she was trying to hold onto something or someone.

Never had Natsu been so emotionally confused.

...

**Hope you enjoyed.**

**This story was originally posted on Team Dragon Star, the collaboration group that I helped create, but after years of inactivity I decided that I'd give this story a second chance on my main page. Let's see whether my gamble pays off.**


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